Charborough is an historic former parish and manor in Dorset, England. It survives today as a hamlet, situated on an affluent of the River Stour, 6 miles west of Wimborne Minster,[1] but without any of its former administrative powers, and is today part of the parish of Morden. The surviving former parish church is dedicated to Saint Mary.[2] The manor house survives as Charborough House.
The mediaeval church of the former parish of Charborough was situated to the immediate south-west of the manor house (in its latest form Charborough House). The mediaeval church was demolished and rebuilt on the same site in 1775 in the Gothic Revival style,[3] by Thomas Erle Drax, and dedicated to St Mary, and was remodelled in 1837 by John Sawbridge Erle-Drax who in 1826 had married the heiress Sarah Frances Erle-Drax of Charborough,[4] and had assumed her surname and arms. It faces almost due east, as is usual, whilst the front facade of the house faces north-east. It is a grade II* listed building, but the listing relates only to its furnishings. Today it serves as a mausoleum and burial place for the Drax family, the functioning parish church being at Morden. Above the door of a small arched building nearby is an inscription, dated 1686, commemorating the meeting of the "Patriotic individuals who concerted the plan of the Revolution in 1688".
Charborough Tower is a Grade II* listed octagonal folly tower dating from 1790, extended in 1839 into a five-storey building. It is situated on a hill southeast of the house with the vista of a triumphal way running between them.[5]
Charborough with its tower is the model for "Welland House" in the novel Two on a Tower by Thomas Hardy.[6]
The manor is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086.[7] It was later acquired during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) by the Erle family whose eventual heiress Frances Erle married Sir Edward Ernle, 3rd Baronet (c.1673–1729). It descended by various further female lines to the present (notional)[8] lord of the manor Richard Drax,[9] the Conservative Member of Parliament for South Dorset since 2010, a member of the quadruple-barrelled surnamed family of Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax. The Erle (alias Earl, Earle, etc.) family originated in east Devon and moved to neighbouring Dorset in about 1500, but soon died out in the male line. Female co-heiresses brought the Erle estates to various other families.